So everyone has been looking forward to a small MacBook Pro, but those who has ever seen the size of the 15 inch MacBook Pro mainboard, knows how small it is. Most of the space is taken up by the slot loading optical drive and battery. So what to do? Just place the optical drive on the bottom of the notebook and add a sensor which knows when you are turning the device upside down. This may sound very stupid, but it might not be as crazy as you think. If anyone can pull this off, it is Apple. I am sure all future Mac(sub)Book Pro owners will agree.

9 Commentson Apple files new patent - optical drive at the bottom of a Macbook

A better solution is to have ONLY HALF the CD in the case... the other half sticking out. (Spindle, obviously IN the case). That would save at least 40% footprint. The user just needs to learn NOT to put their fingers on the spinning disk for fun. In fact... save battery... make the user spin the disk themselves. LOL

Stop driving the CD from the centre spindle. Rather, rest the CD in a slot in the upright laptop screen. Inside the slot are some spools, one or more of which is rubber and powered, that the CD rests on. They make the CD turn. This way, the spindle hole can be OUTSIDE the case. Footprint saved 60%.

I doubt you could get 52x read speeds, since rotation speed would be lower. So why not have TWO or more lasers, to read multiple tracks at a time (and cache those reads). Access would be slower, but read speed would still be very high.

The reason that historically we have only one laser is due to original cost of laser. These are now DIRTY CHEAP... hence we can have multiple "heads" per drive.

I would much rather see the optical drive on the top of the notebook, on the backside of the LCD. It wouldn't mean a whole lot of engineering (not that this is going to make apple bust a nut) and you could put a clear cover on it so idiots like me wouldn't forget what cd is in their laptop and have to turn it on to find out. LCD screens are only going to get thinner and thinner, may as well find a use for the freed up space.

Yet another Apple "Take it up the arse" solution. I forsee alot of people lining up for this one.

Most companies patent ideas for proof of concept for possible future use.... apple patents something insignificant and everyone notices... AMD could patent something that they plan on using, and noone will notice.

While theres certainly big drawbacks to this.. the whole upside down thing and all..

It may have application... elsewhere.

but those reccomending multiple lasers, CDRW lasers are next to nothing.

But the macbook pro uses a DUAL LAYER dvd burning laser... and those are not so dirt cheap for the size of what laptops use :banghead:

The initial mbp has no dual layer, simply because they couldn't make a reliable enough laser small enough to meet production standards and costs...